This fourth "Terminator" film is a dark, noisy and
unimaginative
'grown boys playing with their toys' sci-fi-er, that
indicates the
franchise
only shows a few signs of life but nevertheless all
indications are
that
it will not end here. Director McG ("We Are
Marshall"/"Charlie's
Angels")
and writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris keep the
robotic
screenplay
executed in a grim doomsday monotone befitting its
serious theme of
"War
Against the Machines." The heartless thriller has
trouble even spitting
out the obvious differences between people and
machines, which was
supposedly
the director's aim to tell us what makes us human. But
the trite
answers
are not worth repeating, as the human characters seem
closer to
machines
than humans.

The film opens with cop killer Marcus Wright (Sam
Worthington) on
Death Row in California, in 2003, where life terminal
cancer patient
Dr.
Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter), a research
scientist, on her cell
visit during his 11th hour gets him to sign his body
over to her
research
company for far-out experiments that will transform
him into a
programmed
humanoid cyborg and in return for the favor gives him
a kiss that he
requests.

It then shoots forward to the post-apocalyptic 2018,
after
"Judgment
Day" -- the moment of conflict between the Resistance
fighters of
mankind
and the Skynet computers and machines, who have almost
eliminated the
threat
of mankind except for a few pockets of vagabond
resistance. The human's
only hope is John Connor (Christian Bale). He's the
"prophesized leader
of the Resistance" who is to be mankind's savior, even
though he's not
currently the leader of the Resistance. That rank goes
to General
Ashdown
(Michael Ironside), a rigid belligerent fighter who
acts more robotic
than
the robots.

In the rubble-strewn desolation of Los Angeles, the
local
Resistance
group consists of only two kids: Kyle Reese (Anton
Yelchin) and the
mute
Star (Jadagrace). A reawakened Marcus meets the two
and they separate
when
the kids are captured by a giant robot. The cyborg
through the help of
Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood) meets Connor when she
escorts him to
his
Resistance radio transmissions unit. Connor is married
to the pregnant
Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard), and he coldly greets
Marcus and behaves as
if he's on 'roids and having a meltdown when asked to
show him the way
to the machines' nerve center.

When Marcus realizes that he's been programmed to
help make
the Connor
prophecy come true, he acts more human than the
humans. In the
climactic
scene, despite General Ashdown's orders to forget the
rescue mission of
the prisoners kept in Spacenet's Silicon Valley and
instead take out
Spacenet
(the machine's nerve center) even if it destroys
everyone in it,
Marcus
helps Connor disobey that order to rescue Kyle from
captivity and send
him back to the 20th century so Sarah can be Connor's
mother.

Of note, Schwarzenegger makes his presence felt as a
CGI
mask--a
welcome diversion in such a dull macho offering of
relentless
pedestrian
action scenes that has reduced the drama to almost
nonexistence and the
dialogue to mere cavemen grunts.